Combos are an essential part of lance gameplay in all Monster Hunter games. Lance typically allows three actions before resetting the combo tree. In Wilds specifically, we gain many new options to reset combos beyond the standard back hop or guard dash.

Charge Counter adds an additional layer to lance's combo system, as its power increases depending on how far you are into the combo. In some situations, you might want to use a slower or less powerful attack just to reach the final red level of Charged Counter at the optimal time.

While in focus mode, mid thrusts allow you to strafe in all four directions, enabling small movement adjustments while attacking. High thrusts let you turn in any direction and reach higher targets, which is sometimes required to properly hit monster hitzones.

With the august balance update, we saw massive buffs the the wide sweep, both a raw and elemental damage increase, and when you perform it as the second attack in your combo, the third poke will come out ways faster.

This makes it pretty much one of lance's best dps options in terms of damage coming from non counters.

So in neutral you want to use as many wide sweeps and high thrusts as possible, while using mid thrusts for positioning. The wide sweep is still rather slow, so you really only want to squeeze it in when you know the monster's opening is long enough. But over time you'll learn these openings and how to maximize your damage output.

All possible combos in Wilds perform similarly, but here's the ones that stand out. These work best when the monster is downed or you have a bigger opening. Almost all variations have a leaping thrust variation, that is slightly weaker in terms of damage, but allows for easier reposition/gap closing and is usually a good way to start the combo when a monster falls over.

With the wide sweep and high thrust buff, the best combo obviously includes both of these moves. Due to the increased wide sweep recovery, and the fact that a poke in third place deals more damage than in second place, and the fact that we can't start with a wide sweep, the best combo becomes high thrust, wide sweep, high thrust and then one of the finishers.

When using a raw or status weapon, it's best to end with a charged counter, as even if you don't actually counter anything, it provides more raw dps than the triple thrust finisher.

If you are at a distance, you can always do the leaping thrust variation to close the gap and then transition into the normal combo. You trade a bit of damage for the gap closing ability.

Leaping Thrust into Sweep HT CC

Leaping Thrust into Sweep HT CC

We got a topple on mizu and follow up with Leaping Thrust to easily reach the head and then transition into the normal combo.

The leaping thrust variation is often the best follow up after a power clash or topple, as it usually leaves you at a distance where this combo perfectly catches up to the monster and your other follow up options just miss.

Another advantage that these sweep combos have is that they are very sharpness efficient, as we do slower but heavier hitting attacks, resulting in less hits of sharpness consumed per second.

A different variant of the Wide Sweep combo uses Mid Thrusts instead of High Thrusts and ends with the Triple Thrust instead of the Charged Counter. This variant is lower in raw damage, but higher in elemental damage.

Use this combo When you have an elemental weapon (even if it's raw reinforced) and you hit an Elemental Hitzone of 15 or higher, the extra elemental damage makes up for the lower raw output and it starts outperforming the High Thrust Wide Sweep combo.

Again we can also perform a leaping thrust variation to close the gap and then transition into the combo.

Leaping Thrust into Sweep MT Triple Thrust

Leaping Thrust into Sweep MT Triple Thrust

Uth Duna lost the veil and topples, we follow up with a Leaping Thrust and transition into a Wide Sweep Mid Thrust, followed by a Triple Thrust.

When using the corrupted mantle, we get additional damage ticks on mid thrusts and triple thrusts. The additional damage from corrupted mantle is so significant, it's worth leaving out the wide sweep entirely and just looping mid thrusts and triple thrusts.

The true power of this combo doesn't necessarily come from the damage it deals, but rather from it's reaction speed, ability to reposition and because it's the fastest way to reach red Charged Counter.

So situationally you still want to use it, for example when you need to move slightly to the side to hit the weakspot, or if you can fit in a red charged counter into an attack chain where wide sweep combos can't.